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Dates
Saturday 05/17/2025 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Pricing
$0.00 Perspectives on Troubling Times
Yoga Arose Amid Societal Turbulence: What It Can Teach Us Today
Around 2500 years ago, people living in societal stress and governmental disarray developed some of the foundational assumptions that underlie yoga practice. This workshop will explain how those precepts can assist us today in determining how to respond to the challenges of our time and place.
Our discussion will be informed and inspired by Timothy Snyder’s short book On Tyranny, which provides a clear and concise perspective on how to recognize threats to democracy, and skillful ways the average citizen may respond to those threats. While not required, it is highly recommended to read or review this short text prior to attending.
During our time together, we will discuss each of Snyder’s main points thematically and identify corresponding yoga concepts and practices to support appropriate civic engagement and action.
This is a free community event. As an option, we will include in our discussion ideas the group to donate to organizations working to uphold freedom and democracy.
In order to nurture a container of safe and free expression, this event will be in-person only. Future conversations of a similar nature may be held online for those who cannot attend this time.
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Annie Moyer is a Master of Divinity in Buddhist Chaplaincy and a longtime student and teacher of yoga philosophy and practice, specializing in the intersection of ancient yogic principles in a modern context.
Bill McAllister is a Ph.D. historian with over 30 years’ experience studying, teaching, writing, and informing policymakers about political/governmental/economic/societal issues. He will draw from factual historical examples to illustrate how representative forms of government have emerged, developed, thrived, declined, and died over the last 500 years.
Annie Moyer
For over two decades, Annie has taught yoga, meditation, and yoga philosophy to thousands of yoga students in public classes at Sun & Moon, in corporate settings, in private one-on-one sessions, as part of basic and advanced teacher trainings, and on retreats.
While still teaching meditation and philosophy, Annie is currently on sabbatical from teaching asana while she pursues a Master of Divinity degree focused on Buddhist Chaplaincy through Naropa University.
During her former career as a high school English teacher, Annie began practicing yoga in the 1990s in the Adams Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in a casual apartment setting with a small group of neighbors and one devoted teacher. For five years straight, the group gathered weekly for yoga postures and meditation on a simple wood floor with one cotton blanket each, and much laughter and mutual support.
After her twins were born in 1999, Annie moved to Arlington, VA, and completed teacher training in 2002 at Sun & Moon Yoga, with the intention of bringing yoga philosophy back into the high school classroom. She designed a literature/writing class called Philosophy of Yoga at HB Woodlawn Secondary Program from 2008 to 2017, which students took as their English elective.
Over the years Annie’s role at Sun & Moon has evolved, and since 2010 she has served as Studio Director, overseeing both studio locations with 100-plus classes per week; quarterly programs including workshops, teacher trainings, and visiting guest teachers; marketing and communications; and a large community volunteer program.
Annie is also the co-founder of Awakening Yoga Spaces, a coalition of yoga and wellness communities committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the yoga world, with a primary focus on making Yoga Teacher Trainings more accessible to members of the BIPOC community as a way of dismantling structures of racism and marginalization.
Annie lives in Arlington with her partner Amir Tahami (senior teacher and co-owner of Sun & Moon), their fluffy Persian cats, and the rescue dog and snuggle-artist Currently Known As Prince. The now-adult twins can often be found nearby, sharing meals, dog walks, and a yoga class now and then.
